


The One Where Sulu Has The Sword

by Thea_Bromine



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, Summer of Giles 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 22:48:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1835038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thea_Bromine/pseuds/Thea_Bromine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Giles and Xander watch a video together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Where Sulu Has The Sword

**Author's Note:**

> British spelling because... well, because.
> 
> The characters you recognise belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, or to Desilu/Paramount/CBS/NBC. The picture of Giles is courtesy of [WickedFox](http://wickedfox.livejournal.com/) and doesn’t have anything to do with the plot – I just liked it.
> 
> This was my entry for the [ 2014 Summer of Giles](http://summer-of-giles.livejournal.com/) and is also posted there.

 

It started with a nest of Limya demons, and Giles not getting a concussion. Giles, in fact, didn’t get hurt at all. Giles hauled Xander out of the pit without putting his back out, fought off the adult demons without allowing himself to be touched by fang or claw, and then slammed his sword over one shoulder, heaved Xander over the other, and bolted for safety without so much as pulling a muscle or tweaking a ligament.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/125573331@N03/14735977573)

  
Xander, on the other hand, ached all over from being hurled about and fought over by the Limya kits while they were trying to work out how to get his clothes off in order to eat him. He had bruises from elbow to shoulder on both arms, the bite on his ankle worried Giles for some time because they couldn’t get it to stop bleeding, and his neck was so stiff that he had to turn like a Dalek when he needed to look at anything. He hurt in all the places he had ever hurt before, which sucked, and then in some new ones just for fun. It was a total no-brainer that he couldn’t go to work, and not much less of one that he should spend four or five days in the apartment where Giles could keep an eye on him.

Giles, to be fair, was more generous than Xander knew he had any right to expect. He had rolled his eyes, but he had also cleared the piles of books out of the spare bedroom — it had been news to Xander that Giles _had_ a spare bedroom, he had always assumed that door was a closet of some sort — so that Xander could sleep in a real bed rather than on the couch. He had suggested that Xander spend some time soaking in a hot bath, and when Xander, humiliatingly, had found that he couldn’t get out again, Giles had somehow managed to strong-arm him back to the vertical without putting his hands anywhere that might give Xander the wig, and without ever letting his gaze settle below Xander’s navel. He had ordered Xander’s favourite pizza, from Xander’s favourite place, and — best of all — he had said nothing when Oz had turned up with a borrowed VCR and had attached it to the television which had emerged from under the third box of books in that previously unidentified spare room.

So Xander could see that he really ought to be generous too. He had tried not to babble, particularly first thing in the morning before Giles’ second cup of coffee. He had kept his soda away from the books; he hadn’t teased Giles (much) about being all research-guy and never taking any time off or about the fact that it was Saturday night and Giles was still wearing the tweed. He had limited his _Star Trek_ fixes to times when Giles was somewhere else, training with Buffy or… or doing whatever else the G-Man did when he wasn’t here. He was _trying_ , he told himself, to behave like a good guest.

When Giles came in after patrol, he was alone. Xander paused the VCR.

“Um, is everything O.K.? Every _body_ O.K.?”

Giles nodded, wearily. “One of those patrols where all the action is happening somewhere else and we spend half the night running hither and yon trying to be in the right place. We started in the cemetery on Castle Street and we’ve been to Restfield, Rosedale, Spring Heights, Claremont and Philadelphia Drive. That’s five cemeteries too many, in my opinion, particularly since we didn’t move between them in any sort of sensible order. I think we covered about ten miles tonight, complete with fights and stakings and the usual, the usual…” he waved expressively. “Oz has taken the girls home. Everybody is shattered. Willow was muttering about a cemetery search algorithm. Buffy was just muttering.” Xander could hear him in the kitchen opening cupboards; presently he came back with a glass. “For the last hour, I’ve been hearing the Glenlivet calling me.” He dropped onto the couch beside Xander and glanced toward the television with a startled double-take. “What the hell are you watching?”

Xander grinned. “ _Star Trek_. I’d ask how you could fail to recognise it, but we know the answer to that one.”

Giles frowned and sank half the Scotch. “I thought it was science fiction?”

“Yay for progress! Giles has taken in some of our culture! It _is_ science fiction. Space travel in the future, 1960s style.”

“They don’t have shirts in space? And if it’s the future, why has he got a sword?”

“It’s his hobby, swords. That and house plants, for some reason. That’s Sulu, he’s the pilot, the helmsman, and he’s gone a little crazy on account of something in the water. Classic episode, Giles!” He suddenly remembered his good intentions. “Uh, never mind. I’ll turn it off. I know it’s not your kinda thing, and the TV doesn’t play nicely with the research.”

Giles let his neck roll back against the top of the couch. “Bugger the research. I’m too tired; watch your film, I don’t care.”

He opened his mouth to say “no, this is season one, not the movie,” and then thought better of it. He knew what Giles meant. “Are you sure? If you’ve had a bad night, don’t you wanna, I dunno, read or something? In peace?”

Giles shook his head. “Does this require any input on my part? Then make it happen.”

Well, O.K., if Giles didn’t care…

Only it seemed that Giles did. He wasn’t even _watching_ , well, not properly watching, only obviously he was because… Was it a Watcher thing? That he needed to understand stuff? That no matter how much he despised whatever it was — and Xander wasn’t fooling himself that he’d made a _Star Trek_ convert here — he needed to know how it went together? He managed nearly two minutes before he asked “so what’s the relationship between that one and the other one?” and followed it up a minute later with “is there some significance to the colours of their shirts?”

“Yeah, the gold ones — well, it’s a kinda ugly mustardy colour really — they’re command. Engineering and security are red. You don’t wanna have a red shirt, Giles, unless you’ve got a name as well. It’s a running gag that the guy in the red shirt with no name will be dead by the ad break. Medical people are blue. They changed the colours some between series, and when they made the movies.”

Giles snorted and swigged some more Scotch. “Nothing dates like clothing — all their trousers are too short.”

“And the skirts,” agreed Xander; Giles looked sideways at him and he shrugged. “I don’t mean I don’t like them in short skirts, but yeah, it looks… there are some photos of my mom wearing skirts like that. And yeah, the guys’ pants are too short and too tight.”

Giles made an odd sound, half way to a snigger, and watched for a minute. “Who’s he? Why is he singing?”

Xander started to explain, and after a moment Giles shook his head and got up. “I need more Scotch. I’m not following this at all.”

“Well, you missed the first… you want me to rewind it? Start again?”

“Do that while I make myself a fresh drink. Do you want another one of those fizzy things?”

Wow. Guy-type bonding with the G-Man, over _Star Trek_. Willow was never gonna believe it. “Yeah, please, and are there any chips? Or cookies? Popcorn?”

There were chips, and Giles brought the Scotch bottle back with him. It seemed to help, although some of his questions were still out of left field.

“That one, the pilot, Solo?”

“Sulu. Solo is a different pilot, different sci fi… never mind. Sulu.”

“Does he spend a lot of time with his shirt off?”

Weird, the things that Giles wanted to know. “Usually it’s the captain — look, him — who has the ripped shirt.”

Giles wrinkled his nose and snorted again, Xander wasn’t sure why.

“I think,” he ventured carefully, “that the producers were kinda hoping to get more girls watching. Make sure the captain’s single and then rip his shirt… Mind you, he gets it on with one character or another every second episode, he’s not exactly monogamy poster boy.”

Giles nodded seriously. “When was this made?”

“Started in the sixties, when it was a big thing. Multi-racial cast, you see? And then sequels all over the place, movies… There are comic books and stuff too.”

They watched Sulu, shirtless, climbing a ladder while holding a sword. Giles made that weird sound again; Xander was beginning to get it. It was the sword: Giles was a swordsman himself, so yeah, of _course_ he was gonna be interested in a show where there was another swordsman. Hell, that figured. He bit his lip hard; he was _not_ gonna laugh.

“This is Willow’s favourite episode,” he offered. “She says that when she falls through into the _Star Trek_ universe she’s making a play for Sulu. Don’t think she gets the captain and ripped shirt thing, but she goes all big-eyed for Sulu.”

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/125573331@N03/14715818602)

 “She won’t get him,” commented Giles vaguely, eyes on the screen.

“I dunno, Willow’s pretty determined when she sees what she wants.”

Giles gave him an odd look.

“What?”

“I would have thought it was obvious that he…I’m just… I tend to forget how young you are.”

He bridled a little, offended. “You were never young? This stuff should be your teenage nostalgia kick, not mine. You shoulda been watching it when you were my age.”

“I can’t imagine why I didn’t,” agreed Giles, still vague. “If I had seen this when I was your age… Oh, it’s not youth, of course: it’s innocence. When I was your age,” and his mouth twisted, “I wasn’t half as innocent. No, it’s… what’s the line from that other film you talk about? It’s not the years, it’s the mileage.”

Yeah, now this was going places Xander didn’t want to go with it, like towards questions of demon-raising. He made a vague mumbling sound of his own and reached for his soda. This was getting weird. Giles not only watching _Star Trek_ but quoting _Raiders_ as well? Definitely weird. And what was with the innocence thing? He loved _Star Trek_ , but the early stuff was about as innocent as they came. It was a running gag that Kirk was a total man-slut, but they never actually _showed_ anything. It wasn’t innocence on his part not to see what wasn’t there to be seen, and anyway, what did that have to do with Willow having the hots for Sulu?

They watched to the end — he still had to explain some of the back-story, but it wasn’t too bad, and Giles was way less dismissive than he usually was with something Xander liked. Maybe he was getting the general awesomeness of cult shows?

“Wanna watch another? I think the captain keeps his shirt on all through the next one, which is good.”

Giles picked up his glass and rose. “I don’t think so, thank you. I’ll grant it was more interesting than I anticipated, but…”

“Yeah, I get it, it was Sulu did it for you. You’re hot for his sword, aren’t you?”

The last mouthful of Scotch apparently went down the wrong way; Giles coughed convulsively, eyes streaming. Xander grinned at him. “Can’t fool me, G-Man. I’m willing to bet that we could get you to watch any cult show as long as we told you there was a sword in it.”

Giles stared at him. “Mileage,” he said again, eventually. “Definitely mileage.” He reached over and patted Xander on the shoulder. “I’m going to bed.” He stopped in the doorway, though. “I suppose,” he said, carefully, “that if you and, and the others wanted, you could have a, a, you could order some pizza and watch that together, tomorrow, or, or the next night. I wouldn’t mind. I know it’s, it’s boring for you, being convalescent.”

“ _Star Trek_ party! Yay for that!” He smirked slyly at Giles. “Can probably find you another episode with Sulu’s sword.”

Giles raised an eyebrow. “I shall look forward to it,” he said, dryly. “Goodnight, Xander.”


End file.
